


five times goro eats pancakes (and one time he accidentally sets leblanc on fire)

by astralitte



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, P5R Spoilers, coffee and sweets, no beta we burn like goro on 10/25
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25087057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralitte/pseuds/astralitte
Summary: “You know I hate pancakes, right?” Goro complains after letting out a sigh for the nth time.Flipping a perfectly browned pancake onto a plate, Akira glances back at Goro and says, without missing a beat, “Look, you shouldn’t pretend to hate them just because you outed yourself by being thirsty for delicious pancakes.”
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 17
Kudos: 149
Collections: Day 2 - Coffee and Sweets





	five times goro eats pancakes (and one time he accidentally sets leblanc on fire)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Two of Soft Goro Week 2020! [It comes with an art collab by Gege the sweetheart!](https://twitter.com/ggartss/status/1282525518584324096?s=19)
> 
> Thank you everyone in the Soft Goro Week Discord, especially my bros. You know who you are ♥

one.

Goro aggressively believes that he was incapable of using his own brain while Akira serenaded him into becoming boyfriends for two firm reasons: one, Goro had tried to kill Akira and definitely did not deserve to date the handsome, silver-tongued jerk, and two, Goro had clearly forgotten that Akira has always been quite a bit of a social butterfly and has about a billion friends.

Fortunately, Akira did not share the same sentiment regarding the former.

Unfortunately, due to the latter, Goro is now subjected to being around _friends—_ well, as much as he can call some of them friends, considering that he’d killed their parents, but then they’d also forgiven him—simply because he is Akira’s plus one.

 _What have I done to myself_ , Goro tries not to think.

So, of course, Goro finds himself on a Sunday morning in Leblanc with Akira, Ann, and Ryuji.

“You know I hate pancakes, right?” he complains after letting out a sigh for the nth time.

Flipping a perfectly browned pancake onto a plate, Akira glances back at Goro and says, without missing a beat, “Look, you shouldn’t pretend to hate them just because you outed yourself by being thirsty for delicious pancakes.”

Ann promptly snorts so hard into her iced coffee that it shoots out of her nose, and Ryuji, who is already laughing his ass off, sees Ann and ends up on the floor, clutching his stomach tightly in tears. Akira, pleased with himself, turns around with a shit-eating grin and walks over with a massive stack of pancakes.

“Why do I spend my time around such imbeciles,” Goro groans while Akira steps over Ryuji and sets the food down in the middle of the table along with their cutlery and plates.

“Because you love me,” Akira answers, matter-of-factly.

At this point, Ryuji is slamming his fist onto his chest so that he stops choking between his wheezing. Ann, on the other hand, rushes to the washroom so that she can wash away the iced coffee and touch up her mascara that has streaked down her face from all her laughing. From the washroom, muffled giggles can still be heard.

“I don’t understand. We’re not even being funny,” Goro states, but all Akira does is shrug, place a kiss on Goro’s cheek, and say, “Just eat your pancakes.”

And so, in order to hide a pout, Goro soaks his pancakes with maple syrup and does.

two.

Naturally, the disbanded Phantom Thieves have to insist on making him pancakes again. It has been an inescapable fate since that time he had pancakes at Leblanc with the original three non-cat-thing Phantoms, Goro knows, only because he may have had actually enjoyed the pancakes that Akira cooked a little too much.

“I still hate pancakes,” he declares when Haru extracts some jars of homemade jam out of her fridge. He also hates the expanse of her house, honestly, but decides that it is probably not a good idea to comment on that when the person who even bought the house was someone whom he had murdered.

“Luckily for you,” Haru answers breezily, “what we’re making today aren’t your usual pancakes.”

Goro eyes her suspiciously, his lips rapidly thinning, then eventually decides on a sneer. Not that she sees it. He sips from his coffee, also homemade, and says, “And? What are they supposed to be?”

“I don’t know if you should ruin the surprise,” Akira says, which earns him a death glare from his boyfriend that he ignores.

“Don’t be mean, Akira,” tuts Haru. She takes out an electric takoyaki grill from one of the cupboards and puts it in front of Goro before plugging it in. “We’re making Danish Aebleskiver!”

“Um,” Goro says because he has just about fifty questions.

“They’re basically pancakes,” Akira informs as he takes his seat next to Haru. “Pancake balls that you eat with sugar and jam. But none of us have a proper Aebleskiver pan, so we’re going to try to cook them in this because why not?”

Putting a finger to her lips, Haru sighs. “Maybe I should have bought one?”

“Maybe we should have just not done this,” Goro tells them, scooping a ladle full of batter onto the heated grill, “because I still hate pancakes.”

“Okay, honey,” Akira coos.

three.

It has to happen again—not that Goro’s surprised, honestly, but he had just begun to wonder whether his friends were finally starting to take him seriously. But apparently not.

“What the hell made you guys think that it was a good idea to kidnap me?” Goro says, rubbing his wrists once the blindfold and binds have been taken off. “Have you lost your minds? I was a hitman, for crying out loud!”

Akira lifts his shoulders, eyes darting over to Futaba, then drops them, as if that pushes all the blame onto someone else. “It was her idea.”

The mastermind mwehehes and turns to Makoto, who is miserably failing at pretending to act as innocent as Akira is not. They are in Makoto’s disgustingly pristine apartment, Goro realises, which he hates because the kitchen seems like it had been susceptible to an IKEA catalogue, which reminds him of his own dull apartment.

“I hate your kitchen,” he decides to tell Makoto without regret. “Now, is one of you going to tell me why the hell we’re here?”

Makoto, to her credit, ignores the jab and starts flinging open cupboards a little too forcefully, and the second she reaches for a bag of flour, Goro groans and Futaba falls into another fit of giggles. Akira just stands there with his hands in his pocket, a lopsided grin on his face.

“That’s right,” Futaba laughs, pointing at a very offended Goro. “We’re making some damned pancakes whether you like it or not!”

“I hate pancakes,” is Goro’s standard reply, and at the same time, Akira says, “Actually, we’re making pikelets.”

Goro opens his mouth to argue, but he closes it again when Akira shoots him a pair of pleading eyes. “I know that you don’t actually consider pikelets pancakes,” Akira says, only because they've, strangely, had a conversation about it before, “but Futabs really wanted to try it.”

The petite, orange-haired girl scrunches her face at Akira. “I told you not to call me that!” she hisses. “I’m telling Sumire.”

“Where is she anyway?” Akira asks, unaffected, as he helps Makoto with mixing the batter and heating the non-stick pan. “I haven’t seen her in over a month.”

“She’s at another freaking training camp,” Futaba answers with the biggest sigh, typing away furiously on her phone. “She says hi and also tells you to stop being mean to me.”

“Can you two at least help set out the plates and utensils?” Makoto scolds, which sort of makes Goro question whether he should apologise for his comment about her kitchen because he’s starting to feel mildly contrite for possibly hurting her feelings.

Instead, Goro just nods and searches for the items while Futaba continues to text Sumire. As he puts the dinnerware, all of them with ‘IKEA’ engraved into their parts, onto the dining table, which is most certainly LANEBERG from the very same store, Goro surmises that there is no need for an apology because he legitimately despises the kitchen, which is also rather rich considering his sense of dress.

“Are we ready for the pancakes?” Makoto calls. “The pikelets are ready.”

On any other occasion, Goro would have corrected her, really, but the smell of freshly cooked pikelets tempts him so.

four.

“So what you’re saying is,” Goro enunciates, far too clearly, but mostly for the benefit of himself rather than anyone else, “that these aren’t pancakes.”

“I must have not explained myself well,” Yusuke says with a frown. He pinches his chin between his thumb and forefinger, scrutinising the plate of green, flat, edible things in front of them.

“What does it matter?” Morgana huffs. “Let’s begin our feast!”

Akira rolls his eyes and drags one piece onto his plate. “These are serabi,” he clarifies, dumping a spoonful of coconut and palm syrup and smearing it around evenly on his food. “They’re Indonesian pancakes. They’re also green because of pandan leaves.”

“Isn’t serabi a Pokémon?” Goro asks, looking at the pancakes as if he’s being tricked into being thirsty for them again, but he’s also feeling in style for remembering a non-popular Pokémon’s name.

“That’s Celebi,” Akira corrects, dashing Goro’s feelings unknowingly.

Goro leans back against his seat and folds his arms. “Well, I still hate pancakes,” he grumbles. The distinct foreign scent of the Indonesian pancakes, however, is so enticing that Goro can feel his resolve slowly crumble. The way Akira keeps licking his lips after he finishes chewing also does nothing to help Goro’s self-proclaimed hate.

Morgana’s nose twitches, then he jumps onto the table to start eating his share of the food. “They’re so good!” he meows after nibbling into one.

“Goro, I would advise against letting these go to waste,” Yusuke says, which makes Goro feel a little bad because the thrifty man had been the one who bought the serabi to begin with.

Still, Goro hesitates. The last ‘pancake session’ resulted in far too many pictures of him clearly enjoying the pikelets that Makoto and Akira had cooked, which were distributed to the group chat in a whoops-my-hand-slipped manner even though Futaba promised that she would not. That filthy liar.

“Quit pouting like a baby,” Akira tells Goro, then proceeds to start stacking several serabi on Goro’s empty plate.

“I’m not pouting,” Goro pouts, scooting forward in his seat and placing his arms on the table, to which Akira only answers with a cocked eyebrow. Goro gives himself a couple more minutes to watch Akira, Morgana, and Yusuke eat their green pancakes before he ruefully picks up his knife and fork and digs in. He immediately regrets it.

“I’ve been struck with inspiration!” announces Yusuke, framing Goro with his hands. “I must put to paper your intimate love for pancakes post-haste.”

Mouth stuffed with serabi, all Goro can do is attempt to burn Yusuke with his eyes and middle finger.

five.

“Goro, I know you love pancakes,” Akira says at the exact same time that Goro asserts, “Look, I hate pancakes, okay?”

Akira gives Goro a pointed look, so Goro avoids making eye contact by taking a long sip of his freshly made coffee, but when he sets his cup down, Akira is still eyeing him with thin lips.

“There is no one else here,” Akira sighs, “so I don’t see why you have to keep putting up a façade.”

“I don’t like that you guys keep making fun of me,” Goro mumbles, with his head hanged. “It’s so humiliating that all my plans were exposed just because I was fooled by… pancakes. I don’t know why everyone keeps having to bring it up.”

Akira wipes his hands on a wet cloth before walking around the counter to stand next to Goro. “Honey,” Akira says, gently placing a hand on Goro’s shoulder so that they’re facing each other, “they’re not doing it out of malice.” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind Goro’s ear. “They’re doing it because they’ve taken a liking to you. Why else would they want to have pancakes with you?”

Goro looks up. “What do you mean? I thought…” He trails off, silent.

“They were the ones who suggested trying out different kinds of pancakes with you,” Akira explains, stroking the back of his finger against Goro’s cheek. “What did you think?”

“I thought that they were just—I don’t know,” Goro babbles. “I thought that maybe you came up with those ideas and they were there because you invited them and they wanted to make fun of me or something.”

Akira flicks Goro’s forehead lightly. “You’re overthinking. Besides, Yusuke came across those serabi by chance.”

Scowling, Goro slaps Akira’s hand away. “I don’t overthink,” Goro says. “I have better things to do.”

“And I’m going to be the next prime minister of Japan,” retorts Akira. “Seriously though, you know that they are around you because they like you, right? The other day, Futaba was going on about how she wanted to watch the new season of Featherman with you when it’s out.”

“You’re just saying that,” Goro counters, which makes Akira look at him disapprovingly.

“I have no reason to lie to you. Just think about it.” With that, Akira pecks the top of Goro’s head before going back behind the counter. “Anyway, I’ve a new recipe I wanted to try for you.” When Goro perks up in his seat, Akira to continue with, “They’re basically French crepes, but the recipe says to put coffee in the batter.”

“That sounds really good.” Feeling his mouth water, Goro swallows. “When are you going to make them?”

“Now, actually,” Akira says, walking over to the fridge and pulling out his preparations. “I made the batter before you came over.”

Goro scoots off the chair and pads over to the kitchen area. “Can I help?”

“Nope.” Akira places the bowl back into the fridge and heats up the stove. “I want to spoil you today.” He offers Goro a smirk. “By the way, did you know that crepes are technically pancakes?”

one.

Two weeks later, at Goro’s request, Akira gathers everyone at Leblanc.

“Are you sure you don’t want my help?” asks Akira, looming behind Goro. When he is awarded with a very rude gesture from Goro, Akira relents and walks over to where the others are seated at the booths. Futaba is kneeling on her seat to get a better view of Goro, but the rest are just as curious.

“Will he be okay?” Haru whispers.

Akira looks back at Goro with knitted brows. He isn’t sure how to answer Haru—as far as he knows, Goro has never cooked a single time in his life. Akira is pretty sure that everyone else knows that too. They may or may not have teased him about it before.

“I mean, I ain’t complainin’ if I get free food, y’know?” Ryuji says, leaning back against his seat.

Makoto catches a glimpse of Goro looking at the stove rather angrily. Thus far, there has been no smell of burnt food, so it seems like he is doing okay. “Ryuji isn’t wrong…”

“For once, I agree with the idiot,” Morgana sighs, getting a shout from Ryuji in reply.

“I’m actually surprised that he decided that he wants to cook for us,” Ann gushes. “Like, we all thought that he’d get angry after that time with Yusuke. Remember when we were in mementos and he kept saying how he didn’t want to, like, hear anything about pancakes ever again?”

Futaba leans forward and shields her own mouth. “And then how he kept staring at our food every time any of us ordered pancakes?”

“Futaba!” Sumire chides softly. “I’m pretty sure he can hear us.”

“I definitely can,” Goro calls back, voice strained. “I’m pleased that you are all having fun talking behind my literal back, but all I want to do is make some pancakes for you guys. After everything we’ve been through, it’s the least I can do.”

All eyes, minus Goro’s, shoot towards Akira, who offers them a shrug and a half-smile.

“May I ask what is it that you said to him?” Yusuke asks.

But before Akira can even open his mouth to reply, there is a strangled scream followed by the smell of smoke, then a panicked “Akira!” The fire alarm goes off, and Akira is the first one in action. He dashes to the back of Leblanc to grab the fire extinguisher then runs even faster to Goro while he pulls the pin from it.

Aiming the nozzle past Goro, Akira sees some paper serviettes on fire. He files one dozen questions into the back of his mind and squeezes the handle, effectively putting out the small fire that was starting to further cook the moderately blackened pancakes.

“No!” Goro shrieks, and Akira turns in panic, frightened by the thought that Goro may also be burning. It results in Goro, who is assuredly not aflame, being covered in foam.

Someone turns off the fire alarm—Futaba, Akira is guessing—and there is a bated silence. Goro stares at Akira while Akira stares at Goro. Everyone else stares at them. Foam drips off Goro’s body, landing on the floor in a loud _splat._

The second Makoto starts to snicker at the absurdity of the scenario, everyone else starts to giggle. Only Goro stands there, swiping the foam off himself, lips pursed.

“You okay?” Akira asks as he sets down the fire extinguisher.

Goro turns away, nodding his head slightly. “To think I’ve been bested by some damned paper towels…” He makes a sharp spin to face Akira, his face a mix of mortification and determination. “This won’t happen again.”

The laughter subsides as Haru makes her way over to the couple. “That happened to me the first time I tried to cook too,” she says kindly.

Goro bites his tongue to stop himself from snapping at her, remembering his conversation with Akira.

“Yo, I burnt instant noodles the first time I tried to make ‘em,” Ryuji confesses.

Unsure whether to believe Ryuji, Goro just shakes his head. “Like I said, this won’t happen again. I shouldn’t have left the plate so close to an open fire. I…” He runs his hand through his hair. “I wasn’t using my common sense.”

“Eh, that happens,” Morgana says. “Anyway, shouldn’t we clean up this mess before Boss comes back?”

“I’ll do it,” Goro immediately tells them. “It was my fault.”

“You need a change of clothes,” Ann laughs. “Maybe you can borrow some of Akira’s? We’ll do the cleaning, then we can head out and get some pancakes instead.”

Akira nods and motions with his head towards the attic. “Let’s go.”

“I’m sorry,” Goro forces out. He is immediately met with his friends talking over each other, telling him that things like that can’t be helped sometimes and that they still expect him to make them pancakes one day. “Thank you,” is all he can say, because his heart feels so full that it might just explode and he’s never really felt anything like this before. “Next time, I promise.”

“So,” Ryuji has to start, “you finally gonna admit that you actually like pancakes?”

Goro grabs one of the charred pancakes and flings it right onto Ryuji’s face. “Never,” he sneers.


End file.
